So this house, wow. We didn’t expect to buy as soon as we did and we certainly didn’t expect to find someone as wonderful as what we did! We had three requirements for a house: 1. It needed to be on land. 2. It needed to get good internet so Joshua could work from home. 3. Location. We needed to be within a 1/2 hour of Lafayette. This house has it all.

It was built in 1877 and sits on nearly 3.5 acres. There are four bedrooms, we use three of them and the fourth is Joshua’s office. We are the first owners who are not decendents of the builder of the home. That is really humbling to think about.

There are a few changes we are going to make, mostly it’s just redoing the kitchen to make it more friendly for my cooking style. I currently have a 1960s stove in there though and it is pretty cool, but I need something bigger. Aside from that and adding some more insulation to the attic, the house was/is in great shape. The previous owners took great care of it…and kept receipts of everything done for the past 10 or more years!

From the driveway. One of the nice things is that the house sits far back from the road.

The back yard. It’s totally fenced in and has a clothes line. I love it.

Another view of the yard.

Looking out to the road.

Gate to the backyard.

We don’t actually use this front door, but lok at it.

I use this room for school things. It’s great.

This room isn’t technically a bedroom (it doesn’t have a closet). We store some things in there, plus have our dressers and Peter’s crib in there as well.

Our bedroom. The colors are wonderful, the light from the windows are great.

We use this area as the music “room”.

The kitchen. We are going to put an island in. The island will have the stove in it, then we will open up the window by the stove.

The really old stove.

Staircase. Look at that. Hardwood and curved. It’s so lovely.

There these doors in the middle room to close off from the ktichen and the living room. It’s grand.

The other side of the middle room. That area is so nice to sit in.

What we call the middle room. It’s quite cozy in here and even better when the fire is going.

So that’s the new house. We love it. The kids love it. We are accepting visitors so let me know when you have time to come by!

Someone texted me the other day and let me know that my blog has been silent for three months. It’s been a very busy few months. We did a trip to Michigan to visit with my cousin Paul and his family. Paul had cancer and they knew that he wasn’t going to live much longer, so I wanted to see him and before he passed away. I made another trip to see him a few days before he died as well. He died on September 20th. Please pray for the respose of his soul and for his wife and young children as well as other family he left behind.

That trip was followed by my birthday (which we normally don’t make a big deal about, but I turned 40 so I said we were going out to dinner). That night we also went to look at a house and fell in love with it. We made an offer the next day and when it was accepted, things kinda became a whirlwind.

The kids have also started back with violin lessons and we are making our way through the school year as well, so really that keeps us very busy.

We closed on the house on October 6th and have been busy making it our home since. I’ll do a post more about that later.

At the end of June we went to Baltimore so Peter could meet his god-mama. While we were there we had a showing on our house and received an offer on it. Because of what happened last year, we were very hesitant to get excited about it and kept waiting for the other shoe to fall. As we passed each step, things got more and more real, then it was closing day. Then we moved.

We arrived back in Indiana on August 2nd. It was a crazy trip up with a U-haul with a car trailer, a van with an enclosed trailer, and my mini-van with a trailer. It took us 19 hours but we got here and are working on getting settled.

In the just over two weeks we’ve been here, we’ve done a lot of things, including a 30 mile pilgrimage for Our Lady. Don’t be silly, I didn’t do it, I was on little kid duty, but Joshua and the three big kids did! Joshua and Karol walked all of it and the older girls did about 90% of it. I was very impressed with them.

We are so thankful to be back in Indiana and with friends and family again, God is so good to us.

I normally read the reading before Mass so that I am able to pray about them before hand, and also know what they are if kids act up and I have to step out. So this past weekend, in the Diocese of Savannah, we celebrated the Solemnity of the Ascension so the readings were from Acts, Ephesians, and Matthew.

I was struck by the idea that some of the people at the time of Jesus’ Ascension thought He’d be back soon, yet 2000 years have gone by. Why? Is it so that I could be part of God’s creation and have the chance to live forever with Him in heaven? If so, what am I doing to make sure I am doing my best to make the goal, to finish the race, to make it to the Promised Land?

Sometimes it can feel like my prayers go unheard, sometimes it can be very hard just to utter the words “Jesus I love you” or “Help me, Jesus!”, sometimes it can seem like between diapers and dinner there isn’t time for prayers. Then boom, God gives me a nugget, something to chew on, to ponder, to help me to know that yes, He’s still there.

“…And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” Matthew 28:20

This has happened one other time in the history of Peter and that was when he was maybe two months old. Today he had his bottle while on the floor (as it was supposed to be a snack while I finished up a chore), he drank for a minute, rolled over and fell asleep…and stayed that way for an hour.